by C. L. Stone
“Won’t he just go back to Kota’s house? Or mine?”
“We need him to not see us unloading the car, and take this car back to Kota’s house,” he said. “The less he sees of you, the better.”
“Why me?” I asked. “Why aren’t we making sure Kota isn’t being followed? Isn’t that why he’s following this car? Because he thinks Kota is here?”
Nathan trapped my chin with his fingers, ensuring I focused on him. “Kota’s the most boring person on the planet to follow around. If Mr. Hendricks is looking for dirt, he’s following the wrong person.”
“He’s the distraction?” I asked.
Nathan grinned. “He’s an interest to them because they think he’ll be at the heart of whatever they think we’re doing. If all he does is mow the lawn and walk the dog, they’re going to have to give up.”
“And they’ll start following you or me,” I said.
Nathan shook his head. “If they had the resources to follow more than a couple of people, they would have followed all of us and Mr. Hendricks wouldn’t be asking you for help. He won’t follow you since you’re not in the Academy. If he does decide to, we’ll change tactics.”
Luke sighed, making a turn back onto a main road on the way to Sunnyvale Court. “I’d still like to know who’s following us.”
“It’s not too important right now,” Nathan said. “We have orders to pretend we don’t notice it. If we can’t figure it out just by looking at the outside of the car, we’ll just have to wait this thing out.”
I leaned against Nathan, staring off out the front at the road, and glancing at all the mirrors. Despite what he said, it left me uncomfortable. If whoever was following Kota happened to notice my parents never showed up and never came around, they could use that to their advantage somehow.
I couldn’t imagine what he’d ask of me if Mr. Hendricks ever discovered the truth.
SECRET DREAMS
When we got back, we told Kota everything. Kota had us unload the car quickly. He drove it back to his house and remained there.
Nathan had wanted to stay, too, but Kota had him go home.
“We want to fall into routines and only give them something of interest when we feel like it,” Kota said. “I don’t know how much they’re paying attention, but he can see your house from mine. You need to go home and pretend to be boring like me, too. At least for tonight.”
Luke stayed with me, though. I was in the attic space, picking out clothes for the next day for school, and wondering what to wear to the football game and party afterward. I almost wished Gabriel was there so I could have his help with that. It occurred to me I should ask if he wanted to go, too.
“Luke?” I called to the open door.
Luke appeared a moment later, his blond hair was down, hanging around his shoulders. He’d replaced the school uniform with a pair of dark pajama bottoms and was bare chested. “Yeah?”
“Did you want to go to the game tomorrow?”
“You want a date?”
My face radiated. He’d said it like it was something he was waiting for but he wasn’t expecting the question right that second. Him, too? Now it suddenly felt like they all wanted to go on a date and they were trying to figure out where I stood with them. How did this became more complicated than ever? “Kota and Nathan are taking me. I was wondering if you wanted to go.”
His smile softened. “Oh. Well I can’t go. Uncle wants me at the restaurant tomorrow afternoon.”
“Working already?”
“Gabriel is coming with me. He wants to do last minute decor stuff.”
That brought the smile back to my lips. They were busy anyway. That relieved some guilt about not asking earlier. “That sounds like something he’d do.”
“I didn’t know you liked football.”
“Your brother is playing,” I said, trying to suggest he should be interested for the same reason, to support North. “But if you’re going to be at the diner, maybe we can stop by after. I can’t wait to see it.”
“Oh,” he said, but the tone had dropped enough that it surprised me. When I looked back at him, he was frowning, but he tried to mask it, forcing a smile.
“Unless you’ll be busy,” I said, unsure if that’s what he meant. Did he think I’d be in the way? Or did he want to wait to show me later? “Should we wait until it opens up?”
The smile warmed a little, but only a touch. “If you want.”
It broke my heart. I wasn’t sure what I’d said that made him unhappy. “Luke? What’s wrong?”
“What? Nothing.”
I frowned. I held out a hand to him, inviting him inside.
He seemed surprised by this, but his hand drifted out toward mine, wrapping around my fingers and holding. I tugged him into the attic. He followed me to the back, where there was a platform and the bean bag chair and the collection of pictures glued to the wall. I nudged him up into the two person chair first. He climbed up, sitting back. I climbed in after him, sitting next to him but tucking my legs underneath me, and my knees ended up in his lap.
Even next to him like this, sitting back and looking at him, he seemed uncomfortable, distant.
“Luke?” I wasn’t sure where to start.
He sighed, tilted his head around until his dark eyes met mine. The moment he looked at me, I was struck dumb by his beautiful face, the perfect mouth and angles, and also by the waves of emotion he shifted toward me. “Sang,” he said quietly. His fingers found my cheek in the dark, and he traced the outside of my jaw.
His touch forced a shiver through me. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Don’t ask me that,” he whispered.
“But ...” I didn’t understand. Was it that he didn’t want me to know? He didn’t trust me?
His mouth dipped in the corner and he sighed. “Would you be offended if I told you I didn’t want you to come to the diner?”
This wasn’t what I was expecting. “What do you mean? I thought you wanted me to work there with you.”
“I do. I mean I did ...” He grunted, pulling his hand back and he pushed both palms to his face. “Forget I said anything. It’s stupid.”
“Luke, just tell me.”
He drew his hands away from his face, wrapping one arm around my back and gazing down at me. “I was just thinking I barely get to see you now. I mean I see you every day but we’re always so busy. It’s like the first time in a while I’ve been with you without having Kota bark at us about homework or needing to be quiet so we don’t let your mom know we’re here. And if you start working at the diner ...”
“But if I’m working at the diner, I’ll spend a lot more time with you, won’t I?”
“Yeah, that,” he said. “But we’ll be working. But it isn’t only that. There will be other people there, too.”
I laughed. “Yeah. They’re called customers.”
“And other people working.”
“Like your uncle?”
He pursed his lips, his eyes losing their playful spark. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”
This struck me, and I instantly knew what he was saying without him telling me. I supposed I shouldn’t talk about what I knew out loud but it surprised me so much that my lips were flying. “Other Academy people?”
He grunted, but nodded. “Yeah.”
It should have been obvious to me that there were more Academy students, some who knew Luke and the others, and they’d also like a chance to work in a place that understood Academy business sometimes meant disappearing. Academy people might even stop by as customers. “What’s wrong with that?” I asked. “Is that bad? Do you not like them?”
“No, I like them,” he said. “But we haven’t really told them about you yet.”
“Oh,” I said, almost disappointed. “Am I a secret?”
“Not really,” he said. His gaze lifted from his hand in his lap to me. “I wish I could keep you a secret, though. I want to.”
The longing in his eyes struck me th
at I whispered. “Luke ...”
“Sang,” he said. His hand in his lap slid over until it captured one of mine. He held it, squeezing my palm. “I don’t want you to meet them because I don’t want you to leave us.”
It was like a wash of cool water struck my thudding heart, stopping it dead. I didn’t know how to formulate the question his response had me pondering. “Would ... would the Academy keep me from you if they knew about me?”
Luke’s eyes widened. He shook his head. “No, sweetie, no. It doesn’t work like that.”
My heart released itself, starting to thunder again. “I don’t understand. You made it sound like if they knew, they’d take me away or order us to stop seeing each other. I don’t want to be taken.”
Luke’s mouth finally broke, a small smile forming in the corner. “No, Sang, no, that’s not ... sorry. I’m not good at explaining.” He sighed, straightened a little to collect my other hand and held them together toward his bare chest. “What I’m saying is, everyone in the Academy is really nice. Nice and helpful and capable and talented.”
“Like you,” I said absently, trying to understand his point.
His smile broadened. “Some much more talented than me.”
My hands clutched at his chest as he pressed my palms to it. “You’re worried I’ll like them better?”
Luke let out a breath, strong enough I felt it whispering through my hair across my forehead. “Family is a choice,” he said quietly.
The line and realization that came with it struck me so hard that I nearly clawed his chest. I released him to avoid hurting him. “You think I’d like them better and I’ll replace you with someone else?”
“I don’t want to think so,” he said.
I slapped at his chest. “Luke! I swear, I thought you were going to tell me they were going to ... Why would you ever ... how could you think ...” I was livid. I couldn’t imagine anyone ever luring me away from them. As if that would ever happen! I never talked to anyone but them. Why would anyone even bother? I thought they barely put up with me now, especially since I’ve been so much trouble. But they’ve done so much for me, how could I ever forget about them?
Luke smirked, rubbing at his chest where I’d hit him. “Is that a no?”
I wasn’t even sure what the question was. “If you don’t want me to work at the diner, I won’t, but don’t say it’s because you’ll think I’ll stop liking you.”
Luke’s face fell a little. “It’s always possible.”
“Why would I stop?”
He blinked at me. “What?”
“Why would I stop liking you?”
His lips moved like he wanted to respond but he couldn’t figure out the words. He reached behind his head, rubbing at his scalp behind his ear. “Well ...”
“And what if I liked someone else from the Academy? Does that mean I have to stop liking you?”
“No,” he said. “I just didn’t want you to like them better.”
I paused, pushing a finger to my mouth. “You could like them better,” I said. Isn’t that what I sometimes wondered about them? What if one day girls were approaching them and they started talking? What if he liked her more than me? Wouldn’t it be selfish of me to try to intervene? I’d thought at one point Victor liked someone else at school. Then Silas told me girls tried to win Victor over all the time. I was a girl trying to blend in and be ordinary, and with a whole lot of family problems. They’d swept in and saved me, and I cared deeply for them because of that reason. I also worried all the time they’d get tired of having to deal with it and would want friends, or girlfriends, without such complications.
Luke laughed. “I already know them. Most of them at least.”
“And you’re still with Kota. And you’re here with me.”
His eyes subdued. “Yes.”
“Why do you think I’ll be different?”
“You don’t know them yet. You could still like them better.”
Something Mr. Blackbourne told me earlier caught in my mind. “We can’t worry about things that might happen,” I said.
Luke’s eyes fixed on me. “Sang.”
“Yes?”
His head tilted forward, close enough to my face that I felt his breath on my cheek. “I can’t stop thinking about it. About you ...” He whispered.
My heart stilled and I held my breath, worried I’d miss his words. I was afraid to speak, afraid to interrupt but when he paused, I was worried he’d change his mind and wouldn’t tell me. “What do you mean?” I whispered.
He took up one of my hands again, bringing them to his mouth. He pressed my finger tips to his mouth as if covering them. He kissed them.
I stiffened, afraid and enthralled at the same time. Luke just kissed my fingers.
“Remember when we all slept at Kota’s?” he said behind my fingers. “When we were in the closet together?”
I nodded slowly, drawing in a breath and unable to look away from his handsome face gazing back at me.
“I pulled you in with me, and you looked so nervous. It was dark.” He twisted slightly, finding the light switch and turning off the overhead lights. When we were cast into darkness, the room lit up with glowing stars painted into the wall. “Darker than this.”
I nodded but realized he probably couldn’t see me. “I remember.”
His fingers found my mouth in the dim light, the tips traced against my lips. The gentle touch left me trembling. “Playing that joke on the others wasn’t what I really wanted.”
My lips trailed along his fingers as I tried to speak around them in a whisper. “What did you want?”
He covered my mouth with his fingers and leaned in closer. His eyes closed.
So did mine. My mind blanked out.
I felt his lips through his fingers. He kissed them like he did the night we were in that closet. My heart sparked something sharply, enough that I felt my lungs needed air. Unlike the night in the closet, where I was giggling and knowing the others were opening the door, this time there was nothing to interrupt. I felt every movement of his lips.
He pulled back, his fingers retraced my lips and brushed away toward my cheek. He cupped my cheeks into his palms. The palms were soothing, and his fingers massaged at my skin. “I was going to move my fingers,” he said. “At the last minute, when I knew you were close. I was going to move my hand.”
“Luke ...”
“I was going to steal a kiss,” he said. The glow of the stars above our heads outlined his face now, and while it was difficult to see his eyes, he focused on me, enough to drown me where I sat next to him. “I wanted to steal you away from them by kissing you first, and do it right in front of all of them.”
There it was. Everything I was worried they were trying to do, only I didn’t quite understand. Luke wanted me? “You didn’t,” I said.
His lips tightened in the corners. “No.”
“Why not?” Whoa. What was I asking? I made it sound like I wouldn’t have minded. He was talking about stealing me away from Kota and the others. Part of me was curious, though. I really wanted to know.
Luke’s eyes widened, his palms at my cheeks drew me in an inch closer. “Because I didn’t want you to hate me. You’d said earlier you didn’t think someone should be forced to kiss someone. I thought maybe you wouldn’t want me to.” He brought my hand to his mouth, kissing my fingertips one at a time. “I don’t want to trick you, Sang. Not now. I didn’t want to steal a kiss. I don’t want our first kiss to be like that.”
My breath escaped me again. He was thinking about a kiss. “What do you want it to be like?”
His mouth popped open. He beamed. “You mean you’re not mad at me for wanting to steal you?”
“How can I be mad about something you didn’t do?” I asked. “I mean, you changed your mind. It’s not like you did it and now you’re asking me to forgive you.”
He laughed. “Forgiveness and permission, huh?”
I didn’t understand but I made the
mistake of nodding, as if I knew what he was talking about.
He smiled at this, settling back into the bean bag chair. He tugged me along with him. His fingers threaded through my hair, pressing my cheek to his chest. He nuzzled the top of my head with his cheek. “Where would you want our first kiss to be?”
I blushed, afraid to answer him. It was like admitting I wanted him to and I didn’t even know what it would mean. Would kissing him mean I couldn’t kiss anyone else? Nathan already kissed my hand. I almost kissed Kota ... or maybe I didn’t. Even in the dim light, I worried he could sense my embarrassed face. “I don’t ... I’m not sure.”
“I was going to say inside Kota’s closet, but that’s probably a terrible place,” he said. “I mean, what would we tell everyone?”
“Maybe at the diner,” I suggested. “Where we first met.”
“Ah. Yeah. That’d be good.” His fingers combed through my hair, and traced down along my neck. “One night, we’ll work super late. Maybe there’s a lingering crowd. You’d be frustrated with the register that stopped working. I’d have a rough table, with kids that are whining. People are yelling at both of us to hurry.”
“This sounds ... amazing,” I said, not hiding my surprise. Did that sound romantic to him?
He laughed. “Maybe someone gets frustrated with you, drops cash into your palms to pay and walks out. You’re about ready to fall apart and quit and walk home.”
“I wouldn’t quit on you,” I said, convinced that was true.
“Hang on, I’m getting to the best part.” He pushed his cheek to my head. “I’d find you. I’d come over to the register.” He pulled back from me, picking my head up in both palms, glancing into my eyes in the dim light.
My heart thundered. My fingers found his lips, covering his mouth like he’d done to me before and my mind catching on to his vivid imagination. “People would be watching,” I said quietly. “Wondering if you’re about to fire me or start yelling.”
His eyes locked on mine. “I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. I’d jump the counter to get near you.”
